Ever since February 15 the signs were there that this Vancouver Canucks team was not as good a team as they thought they were. Now you can massage the numbers any way you like it but a loss is still a loss, whether it’s in regulation, over-time or in a shoot-out.

In the last 15 games the Canucks have five wins, six losses, one over-time loss and three shoot-out losses. Something has to give here and someone must be held accountable and no – it’s not Alain Vigneault. He’s still the same coach that brought them to within one game of the Stanley Cup and two Presidents Cup Trophy’s.

So let’s not go there, and start calling for the coach’s head, because he can only work with the talent that has been given to him by the GM, Mike Gillis. Suffice to say this team does not have enough talent starting with the obvious position – centre ice. Now, Gillis did draft Cody Hodgson and Jordan Schroeder, and Hodgson has turned into Zack Kassian, but Schroeder is a depth player at best.

With Ryan Kesler out, this really exposes the need at centre, but nothing has developed with the Roberto Luongo asset, by turning it into a much-needed centre and another right-hand D-man. Nope, this team just slugs along playing un-inspired hockey with not enough scoring, no power-play or penalty-kill.

Now by all accounts Gillis has been on the phone constantly trying to pull off a trade for a centre, but when you are trading from a weak position, the other teams want the moon.

Maybe Luongo is not the goalie they should consider trading after all, as I don’t see Cory Schneider making that key save that turns a game around. Whichever goalie it turns out to be, the Canucks need to move on this because right now they are one loss from being out of a play-off spot. As I mentioned in a previously blog, if the play-offs were to start tomorrow, the Canucks would be one round and out.

With a start to trying to revive the power-play, how about changing the assistant coach that is responsible for it – Newell Brown. Since about the middle of last season till now, this team has resided in the bottom eight, somewhere between 22 to 30th. This also includes the poor showing in last season’s play-offs – like near the bottom. Right now the team is grasping at straws in their deployment of Schroeder on the point (when he was here) and some of their mixtures on the second team power-play.

Another area that needs to be re-visited is the Manny Malhotra’s shut-down. Now, I’m not privy to the tests that were done to his eye to determine whether his vision was placing him in jeopardy, but I’m hoping that this is the case. If not, then his league-leading proficiency before he was shut-down, would surely help the team with puck possession and increase their dismal ranking (22nd) in face-offs.

One line team’s, like the Canucks are at present, are usually found out of the play-offs or near the bottom of the league. The Canucks really have only a few quality offensive players – and that’s the Sedins, Ryan Kesler – when he is healthy, and Alex Burrows.

On defense, the supposedly number one player Alex Edler (-2), should now be considered a bust. I don’t have enough information to know whether he signed a no-movement clause when the Canucks re-signed him, but if not, it’s time to move him. This team will never, and I’ll repeat – never, win a Stanley Cup without a Norris Trophy Winner/Candidate.

The best Canucks D-man this season is the one that is currently back in the line-up, and I’m speaking of Kevin Bieksa. It’s not hard to see why the Canucks struggle even more – without him in the line-up.

All that I know right now is that the Minnesota game tonight will determine in which direction this team is going.

Ice Bits – I’m not suggesting any whole-sale changes at this time, because that would upset the chemistry of this team, but a couple of major ones, might wake up this under-performing bunch. If top prospect Nichlas Jensen, who is currently with the Chicago Wolves, proves he can continue to score at the professional level (5 games – 2G), then I would have to say that David Booth is expendable – if he can ever remain healthy long enough.

Jason Garrison leads the D-men in the +/- stat with a +8.

In the last two games against Detroit, Roberto Luongo had 13 goals scored against him. I would expect Cory Schneider to start tonight as Luongo doesn’t have much luck against the Wild.

Here are the face-off percentages from the Canucks/Detroit game. Chris Higgins – 36, Andrew Ebbett – 36, Henrik Sedin – 48, and Max Lapierre – 30. Need I say more about why this team is struggling. It’s pretty hard to beat a team that has possession of the puck most of the time, when you are chasing them all night.

Just in case you missed that brawl between the Chicago Wolves and Rockford Icehogs, here it is

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